The sad and silent death of Yahoo’s EasyListener

July 7th, 2009    24 Comments

Right now, as I write, there is an ugly gap at the top right of all ITauthor.com pages. It used to be filled by an audio player called EasyListener, provided by Yahoo, that I just embedded in my side panel. It was the best thing of its kind because it was neat enough to fit in a slim side panel and it was simple. It read from an RSS feed, pulled out the MP3 files and listed them in the player. You just clicked on the item you wanted and it played the audio.

But Yahoo quietly choked it and hoped that nobody noticed. I’m not sure why they would do this. I’m sure they could handle the bandwidth of people pulling down the Shockwave file off some server that had been left to serve up the old webjay.org pages. Maybe someone at Yahoo just pulled the plug on that server and not enough people have complained. I wish I’d gone and grabbed the files while they were still there. I looked at archive.org but the URL was never spidered.

So I’m going to have to find another solution, but it won’t be for a while because I know there’s nothing quite like it out there, so I’ll have to do some switching around and PHP-ing to sort it out.

It’s symptomatic of the Web though: it seems like a solid, reliable structure, but it’s really entirely transitory and kept in working order by a lot of people and a lot of effort. It’s a bit like a car: as soon as you fix one thing, something else breaks.

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  1. User Gravatar edie2k2 said:

    July 15th, 2009 at 4:02 am (#)

    I have used Easylistener extensively myself and was horrified to wake up today and see that all of my players are gone--dead.
     
    Tragic!!!
     
    ~e

  2. User Gravatar Ed Shakes said:

    July 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am (#)

    I am absoultely gutted about this. My players have just gone. I haven't found any replacement either. It was such a cool player. Shout me if you find anything that can replace it
    Sad day
    Ed

  3. User Gravatar Alistair said:

    July 15th, 2009 at 9:25 am (#)

    Yeh, it's very strange for a company to produce something that did what it did better than anything else currently out there, looked good, and was being used by lots of folks on lots of site - and then just pull the plug on it. This is one of the problem with huge companies: sometimes they don't look after their own assets. No doubt somebody will resurrect it under another guise eventually.

    Like Ed said: if anyone hears of something that does the same thing as nicely as Easylistener used to, please let me know.

  4. User Gravatar Paul said:

    July 21st, 2009 at 9:28 am (#)

    I also was horrified. Easylistener had all the features i needed.
    I still have a downloaded version of the easylistener code.
    Unfortunately when I run that downloaded version It gives the error code "will only run from a Yahoo server". Could someone fix that problem ?

    Alternatively this player with multiple skins could do the job:

    http://blog.lacymorrow.com/projects/xspf-jukebox/?t=WinampSmall
    http://blog.lacymorrow.com/projects/xspf-jukebox/?t=mp3music

    The XSPF format of the playlists is slightly different from the easylistener.
    I found a lot of information here : http://xspf.org/applications/
    but still could not find a good substitute for the easylistener

    please help !

  5. User Gravatar Alistair said:

    August 14th, 2009 at 6:52 pm (#)

    EasyListener has been repaired and has reappeared on my Web site.

    The code I use in my side panel is:

    <p style="margin-left:-10px; margin-top:0"><embed src='http://webjay.org/flash/xspf_player' width='170' height='200' wmode='transparent' flashVars='playlist_url=http://www.itauthor.com/category/podcasts/feed&rounded_corner=1&skin_color_1=0,-100,-29,18&skin_color_2=0,-100,-27,20' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer'/></p>

    The embedded player:

    http://webjay.org/flash/xspf_player

    now redirects to:

    http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?referer=

    which is where Yahoo moved the player.

  6. User Gravatar William White said:

    September 7th, 2009 at 2:09 am (#)

    Hey guys,
    I'm the original developer of EasyListener and appreciate your sentiments.  It was indeed a sad occasion when Yahoo! finally pulled the plug on the webjay.org server this summer.  I apologize for any inconvenience anyone may have encountered.
    @Paul - the actual SWF needs to be hosted on Yahoo! servers so it has access to call the Yahoo! Play This Page service.  (A crossdomain.xml file on the Yahoo! server only permits access from other Yahoo! servers)
    I believe the webjay.org server has been shut down for good, but as you have seen, the player itself has always been served off Yahoo!'s edge hosting service.
    These files will be here permanently.   So you can create your own redirects like I've done here:
    http://musiclibre.org/xspf_player/?playlist_url=http://www.aurgasm.us&rounded_corner=1
    Or update your embed codes to use the yimg.com server URL, (like you've done on the itauthor.co website).
    Thanks for the memories.
    William

  7. User Gravatar Sucrepop said:

    September 12th, 2009 at 11:44 am (#)

    Thanks a lot for allows us to put back that wonderful piece of soft back on line. definitively one of the best player i've used

  8. User Gravatar kcortez said:

    September 16th, 2009 at 7:51 pm (#)

    Sweet, thanks for this.
    One thing, I can't get the skin colors to continue working - my code looks like this:
    <embed src='http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?referer=' width='390' height='300' wmode='transparent' flashVars='playlist_url=http://www.thisissomewhere.com/player/&rounded_corner=1&skin_color_1=0,0,0,0&skin_color_2=0,0,0,0' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer'/>
    this used to be a black background with greyish letters and now it seems like it's the default blue?

  9. User Gravatar Edie said:

    January 21st, 2010 at 4:01 pm (#)

    Are you here? If so I have a question.

  10. User Gravatar Alistair said:

    January 21st, 2010 at 4:10 pm (#)

    what's up?

  11. User Gravatar edie2k2 said:

    May 2nd, 2010 at 6:01 pm (#)

    Hi..sorry it took me so long to get back. As of yesterday my players won't work..the little dial just spins around and the playlist is absent. I'm not sure if it's on my end or what. Previously I wanted to ask if there was a way to change the color of the player.

    Thanks!

    Edie

  12. User Gravatar itauthor said:

    May 23rd, 2010 at 3:55 pm (#)

    EasyListener seems to have died again. It's a pity Yahoo weren't prepared to support this. That's the trouble with big companies: they're so busy looking for the big money they don't look after the little nuggets of gold they already have.

  13. User Gravatar edie2k2 said:

    May 24th, 2010 at 5:18 am (#)

    How glad I was to see your reply. I kept checking periodically. Thank you for helping me to appreciate that I haven't lost my mind. I am saddened that such a priceless nugget has been allowed to die--again.
    Is there anyone to your knowledge that has a similar player capability?

    Edie

  14. User Gravatar William said:

    June 13th, 2010 at 4:14 pm (#)

    Hey guys,

    Thanks to Alistair for alerting me there were more issues....

    @edie2k2 - I've created a page: http://musiclibre.org/easylistener/

    which you can use to select the colour configuration you'd like for EasyListener.

    Swap in the URL http://musiclibre.org/xspf_player instead of webjay.org/flash/xspf_player and it should work for you...

    Eg: http://musiclibre.org/easylistener/test.html

  15. User Gravatar itauthor said:

    June 14th, 2010 at 8:14 pm (#)

    Thanks to William White - one of the guys who created EasyListener at the Yahoo! Media Innovation Group - who helped resurrect EasyListener again. To get it working again I added playthispage_url =http://musiclibre.org/playthispage/?url= to the flashVars attribute within the embed element. So my embed element now looks like this (note: the flashVars value should be one long string, without spaces or line breaks):
    <p style="margin-left:-10px; margin-top:0">
    <embed src='http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?referer='
    width='170'
    height='200'
    wmode='transparent'
    flashVars='playlist_url=http://www.itauthor.com/category/podcasts/feed&
    playthispage_url=http://musiclibre.org/playthispage/?url=&
    rounded_corner=1&skin_color_1=0,-100,-29,18&skin_color_2=0,-100,-27,20'
    type='application/x-shockwave-flash'
    pluginspage='http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer'/>
    </p>

  16. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 3rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm (#)

    Hi Everybody...I am in the true twilight zone. I tried the above and nothing. The dial still spins around and no playlist populates. :=(

    HELP!

    Edie

  17. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 5th, 2010 at 3:37 am (#)

    In case anyone is following the thread still--I had a breakthrough after much toil, trial, and error. I applaud William White! I LOVE him for saving us!!!! itauthor: I have the code that will make your players work. I FINALLY figured it out! Contact me at: des_toni@yahoo.com for details.

    Edie

  18. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 5th, 2010 at 3:39 am (#)

    Hi Everybody...I am in the true twilight zone. I tried the above and nothing. The dial still spins around and no playlist populates. :=(

    Yay! I got it!!!! Thank you William for musiclibre!!!! You are my true hero!!!!!!

  19. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 5th, 2010 at 3:43 am (#)

    There is an easier way.....What You Have At Present:
    <embed src="http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?referer=" wmode="transparent" flashvars="playlist_url =http://www.itauthor.com/category/podcasts/feed&amp;playthispage_url=http://musiclibre.org/playthispage/?url=&amp;rounded_corner=1&amp;skin_color_1=0,-100,-29,18&amp;skin_color_2=0,-100,-27,20" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" width="170" height="200">

    What I Figured Out: (It was GRUELING!) :=) :
    <embed src="http://musiclibre.org/easylistener/webplayer" width="170" height="238" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="playlist_url =http://www.itauthor.com/category/podcasts/feed&rounded_corner=1&amp;autoplay=1&amp;skin_color_1=0,0,0,0&skin_color_2=0,0,0,0&amp;bg_color_1=transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" </>

  20. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 5th, 2010 at 2:04 pm (#)

    ITauthor: In the new code that I left you above--I found that it would not work with the url that you have in it--but it will work with this one:
    http://feeds.feedburner.com/itauthor

    William: The easylistener generator will not update the variables, it keeps defaulting to webjay in the generator box...

  21. User Gravatar Edie2k2 said:

    July 28th, 2010 at 6:25 am (#)

    Is anybody ever coming back???

  22. User Gravatar itauthor said:

    August 27th, 2010 at 8:37 pm (#)

    Hi Edie

    I hope you've fixed this by now.

    After William White fixed this (see comment above) I've had no more problems with it. It works just fine in my WordPress sidebar.

    I checked the HTML of my sidebar in WordPress and it's still the same as I posted in a previous comment (above).

  23. User Gravatar edie2k2 said:

    August 29th, 2010 at 1:12 pm (#)

    Hi itauthor. All I see in your sidebar here is your dial spinning. It must be me I guess.

  24. User Gravatar itauthor said:

    August 29th, 2010 at 5:39 pm (#)

    That's bad. I've checked it on a variety of operating systems & browsers and it works OK for me. It's always the last thing to load but it does appear after a while. Can you do me a favour and let me know what browser, browser version and operating system you're using?

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